


Since I Met You In June

by platinum_firebird



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lifeguards, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Beach Volleyball, First Kiss, First Love, Getting Together, M/M, Magic, Merpeople
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26219854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platinum_firebird/pseuds/platinum_firebird
Summary: Coming off an awful first term at Seijoh and a crushing defeat in his first official high school tournament, Kageyama gets a job as a lifeguard on Karasuno Beach. There, he meets a strange boy in the waves. There are a lot of weird things about Hinata Shouyou, but he's as enthusiastic about volleyball as Kageyama, and for him, that's enough.But as the strange occurrences and questions start piling up, Kageyama might have to admit there's something weirder about his new friend than how high he can jump to spike a volleyball.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 7
Kudos: 86
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	Since I Met You In June

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LMD18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMD18/gifts).



> I had so much fun writing this! Thank you for requesting this, it was a blast to do. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Title is from [June by Sage Charmaine](https://youtu.be/ihBTC0bqfgg), which is totally a mood for this fic.

Kageyama gets to the beach at eight twenty five, over a half hour early. There are a few people out already, walking along the edge of the surf and enjoying the cooler morning air, but there’s more than enough space in the rack for his bike. He locks it up and takes a seat on the sand by the tiny lifeguard’s station, hugging his knees to his chest.

His father said being early on his first day would show his enthusiasm for the job, but now Kageyama’s wondering if it won’t just make him look like a dork.

Still, at least it means he won’t be fired. After everything else he’s fucked up in the past few months, losing his summer job on the very first day would be shit icing on a very shitty cake.

He sits there stewing in very similar thoughts until he hears footsteps crunch through the sand nearby. “Here already?” a voice asks.

Kageyama looks up to see Daichi, who’d been introduced at his interview as the most senior of the temporary lifeguards. “Still used to getting up early for school,” Kageyama mumbles, which Daichi seems to think is an acceptable excuse.

“You’re the first person who’s ever been here earlier than me,” he says, amused, as he goes to unlock the door of the lifeguard station. “I can guarantee Tanaka will be late.”

“There are three of us this morning?” Kageyama asks, as he stands and follows Daichi to the station’s door.

“You’re on probation for the first week, so we’ll try and keep three people on the beach at all times,” Daichi says. He picks up a clipboard and pen, and says, “Right, let’s record this morning’s weather conditions.”

Kageyama had come into this job under the impression that all he’d have to do would be sit on the shore and watch the beach, tell people off for drinking too much or getting too rowdy with their ball games, and if he was unlucky, save a few people from the infrequent riptides that occasionally appeared off the shore. What he hadn’t anticipated was the focus on measuring and recording the weather conditions, height of the surf, and other natural occurrences throughout the day. Daichi tells him it’ll soon be second nature, but as Kageyama squints at the numbers on their handheld anemometer, he wonders whether taking the job at the beachfront cafe wouldn’t have been easier.

As predicted, Tanaka arrives ten minutes late, and Daichi ribs him about it for at least the first hour. The rest of the day passes in a blur, until the very end, when Kageyama is called upon to mediate an argument between a dog owner and the owners of the barbecue from whom said dog just stole an entire beef burger. Given Kageyama’s tenuous grasp on social skills, this goes poorly, and ends up with Daichi having to step in for him and calm everything down.

“I’m really sorry,” he says, for what must be the third time, after their shift is over and Daichi’s locking up the lifeguard station.

“It’s fine,” Daichi says, but he still looks annoyed, and Kageyama gets that sinking feeling that he’s just messed up, _again_ , with someone he really hoped was going to like him.

For him, that’s a familiar feeling.

He bids the others goodbye and goes to sit on the beach, unwilling to go home and face his parents just yet. Things have been tense with them ever since he came home from school - or rather, ever since they received his report card - and sitting on the beach watching the sunset seems better than sitting alone in his room.

He’s watching the waves, trying not to let his mind dwell on lifeguarding, or his parents, or school, or volleyball - on anything, really - when he sees something flash in the waves. He blinks, and- there. Just for a moment, something sparkles as it catches the light of the dying sun.

Kageyama tilts his head, staring out at the waves. A big fish, maybe?

Then, for just a second, he thinks he sees someone swimming, out in the waves.

He’s on his feet immediately, ready to cry out - it’s not safe to be swimming this late, with no lifeguard on duty - but as quickly as it came the shape is gone again. Kageyama waits for it to reemerge, but nothing breaks the ocean’s surface again.

“You okay?”

Kageyama turns to find Tanaka, watching him with an expression of mild concern. Much more interesting, though, is the fact that he’s spinning a volleyball between his hands.

“Thought I saw something. Must have been just the light,” he says.

Kageyama’s trying not to stare at the volleyball, but Tanaka sees right through him. “You wanna play? We need another guy for our three-on-three.”

“Yes,” Kageyama says, because he hasn’t played volleyball in over a week, and that’s probably the longest time he’s spent away from a court since the start of Middle School.

It’s only when he reaches the makeshift court, though, that he remembers why.

He loves volleyball. Always has, and always will. But for a moment as he steps onto the court, all the complaints and arguments and jeers of the last semester of high school volleyball club come rushing back, and he suddenly wishes he was anywhere but here.

Then Daichi claps him on the shoulder, and Kageyama jumps back to the present. This is the beach, not the Aoba Johsai gymnasium. These guys are new team mates, not the resentful, bitter boys who followed him from Middle School. This will be fine.

Daichi and Tanaka make a team with him on one side. Tanaka introduces the guys on the other side, but he goes so fast Kageyama only makes out that the short, energetic guy is called ‘Noya’; in his head, he dubs the other two ‘scary bun guy’ and ‘sleepy calm guy’.

Despite his worries, everything feels _right_ when he gets a volleyball back in his hands again. He throws a few practise balls to Daichi and Tanaka, telling himself _slow, adjust,_ in his head. They’re better than he expected, sending the balls slamming down into the sand on the other side of the court, and as soon as they start the game for real, Kageyama finds himself slipping back into the old, familiar rhythm of volleyball. It’s tinged with caution, both against sending the ball flying at the spiker too fast again, and in respect to the shifting sand under his feet, so unlike the solid wooden floor of the volleyball court - but it’s there. It feels right.

He _does_ send it too fast once - knows as soon as it leaves his hands that it’s going too fast, and watches in horror as it screams past Tanaka’s descending hand and flies out across the sand. He’s already saying, “Shit, I- sorry-” before he realises Tanaka is laughing.

“That almost took my damn nose off!” he says, grinning and shaking his head.

Kageyama stares at him for a second, dumbfounded, before saying, “Er, sorry.”

Tanaka waves it off, still grinning, and Noya rushes off across the sand, yelling, “Our ball!” as he goes.

“Do you play for your high school team, Kageyama?” Scary Bun Guy - or Asahi, as Noya has been calling him - asks.

Kageyama nods, and Daichi asks, “At Minagi East?”, referring to the school in the next town over where most of the kids here go for high school.

Kageyama looks away. “No. I go to a school inland. A boarding school.”

“Fancy,” Tanaka whistles.

Sleepy calm guy - Kageyama still hasn’t caught his name - asks, “Is it a good team?”

“Yeah. They almost made it to Nationals last year.”

There are appreciative whistles all around. Tanaka laughs, clapping him on the back as he says, “But I bet with all those good third years, you’re still on the bench, huh?”

Kageyama just grunts, giving an invisible middle finger to his smirking, self-satisfied mental image of Oikawa Tohru.

They end up winning, and then go to the store for meat buns, and then Kageyama realises he’ll be in trouble for missing dinner if he stays out any longer. He feels good, though, as he rides back up the hill to his house. Happy.

The feeling lingers until he gets in the door and walks into the dining room, where his mother is just laying the table. His father, sitting at the end of the table, looks up at him with a raised eyebrow. “You stayed out late.”

Volleyball is a touchy subject in the household right now, so Kageyama only says, “The other lifeguards invited me to hang out with their friends.”

“Good,” his father says, which is the first bit of praise that’s passed his lips since Kageyama got back from school. “And the job?”

“It went okay,” Kageyama says, wincing internally.

“I suppose ‘okay’ is better than awful,” his father says archly, before his mother tells them not to fight over dinner, and they eat their meal in the same strained, awkward silence that has reigned over every meal for the last week. It’s a relief when it’s over and Kageyama can go up to his room, even if he ends up just lying on his bed, tossing his volleyball up above his head again and again.

/

Three days later and halfway into his probation week, Kageyama thinks he’s starting to get the hang of this job. He hasn’t had to rescue anyone yet, and aside from the barbecue incident, everything has gone smoothly.

He’s stayed behind to play volleyball with Daichi and Tanaka’s friends for the last two days, but today there aren’t enough of them free to form teams. Still, Kageyama finds himself lingering on the beach, ambling along the edge of the surf. As the sun begins to set, he plops down onto the sand with a sigh.

He knows he can’t keep avoiding home all summer. He’s going to have to have a serious talk with his parents at some point, but right now just the thought of it makes him want to throw himself off the nearest cliff.

There’s an unnaturally loud splash from the water. When Kageyama looks up, he meets the eyes of someone lounging in the waves, watching him.

For a second he just blinks, staring. It’s a boy, maybe his age or younger, with hair such a startling shade of orange that for a moment it’s all Kageyama can focus on.

The boy tilts his head and says, “Are you not playing the game today?”

“The game?” Kageyama asks.

The boy motions with his left arm, as if he’s serving or spiking a volleyball. “The game with the ball,” he says.

“What, volleyball?”

“Volleyball,” the stranger repeats - then says it several more times, like he’s never even heard the word before.

“Yeah,” Kageyama says, narrowing his eyes. This guy is weird. “There’s not enough people to make teams.”

“How many people do you need for a team?”

“Six.” Now Kageyama is the one tilting his head. “Have you never even played volleyball in school?”

“I’ve never played volleyball!” the boy says, his tone letting Kageyama know in no uncertain terms how much of a tragedy this is. “Why six?”

“Why six what? People?” The boy nods. “I don’t know… because that’s the rules.”

“What are the other rules?” the boy asks, his eyes bright, somehow managing to bounce in place despite being in the water.

“Er, well…” _This guy must have gone to strange schools if he’s never even heard the simplest rules of volleyball_. Still, there’s pretty much nothing Kageyama likes to talk about better than volleyball, even if it is explaining the rules to a complete amateur. The boy looks positively ecstatic at even the most simple information, and Kageyama finds himself responding in kind, moving from simple rules to more complex strategies and tactics, getting so deep into the conversation that he’s shocked when he looks up to find the sun is well and truly down. When he looks at the time on his phone, he winces. He’s _definitely_ late for dinner. “Sorry, I have to go,” he says, getting up.

“Wait!” the boy says, “What’s your name?”

“Kageyama Tobio,” Kageyama says, marvelling at how they’ve talked for nearly two hours without that even coming up. “And you?”

“Hinata Shouyou,” the boy says, grinning. “And when we play tomorrow, I’m gonna beat you at volleyball!”

“You can’t beat me if you only just learned the rules, idiot,” Kageyama says. “And who says we’ll let you play, anyway?”

Hinata sticks out his tongue, which makes Kageyama want to walk over and deck him, but then he hears his sister’s voice calling over the beach. Shit. He must be really late if she’s come out to look for him. He turns to shout, “Here! I’m coming!” and spots her quite a distance away, back where the beach meets the concrete steps that lead up to the road.

“Just you wait for tomo-” he starts, turning back to Hinata; but somehow, in the brief moment he looked away, Hinata has managed to completely disappear.

/

It’s Kageyama’s day off the next day, but he goes down to the beach after five anyway; he doesn’t want it to look like he’s chickening out if Hinata _does_ appear.

He doesn’t, which Kageyama finds inexplicably disappointing. The others are there, though, so they play a few games of volleyball, and it doesn’t take long for Kageyama to feel better.

He still lingers on the beach until sunset, telling himself he’s just enjoying the evening, but Hinata doesn’t show up.

The next day, though, Kageyama can already see a bright tangle of orange hair over by their makeshift volleyball court as he’s locking up the lifeguard station.

As Kageyama walks over, he watches as Tanaka throws a pass to Hinata, who manages to get his forearms under it - only for it to rebound directly into his face, almost knocking him right over. “I thought you said you were going to beat me,” Kageyama says, crossing his arms.

Hinata’s head whips up, and he glares. “I _am_ ,” he says, though his ferocity is marred somewhat by the thin line of blood that’s starting to trickle out of his nose.

“Right,” Kageyama says, but he hands Hinata a tissue.

That pretty much sets the tone for the whole evening. Hinata has clearly never played volleyball before, but the guys humour him - and though Kageyama is loathe to admit it aloud, he certainly has the athletic ability to make up for his lack of skill. Even Kageyama does a double-take the first time he leaps off the ground for the ball - even if his hand does miss actually hitting it.

“I kind of suck,” Hinata says, after the game has broken up and everyone’s leaving to head home.

Kageyama stares at him for a second. “You’ve never played before.”

“Yeah, but I watched.”

“You…” Kageyama wants to say, _You did good for your first time_ , but it’s hard to force the words past his lips. “You weren’t a complete disaster,” he manages. When Hinata looks hopeful, he adds, “But you still need a lot of work. Your receives are terrible.”

Hinata sticks his tongue out at him. “Bet your receives were awful the first time you tried.”

“Everyone’s awful at everything the _first_ time,” Kageyama says, affronted.

That, finally, makes Hinata look thoughtful. “Yeah, I guess. I was pretty awful at fishing the first time I tried, so.”

Kageyama blinks at him. “You like fishing?”

Hinata frowns. “No? But I can’t not fish, can I?”

“Couldn’t you just buy fish at the store?” Kageyama asks - before realising he might’ve just put his foot in his mouth. What if Hinata’s family doesn’t have enough money to buy food?

Hinata, though, doesn’t look offended, just confused. “You get soda at the store. And Popsicles.”

“Yeah, but you can get fish there too.”

Hinata wrinkles his nose. “Weird.”

“You’re weird,” Kageyama says, because he can’t make heads or tails of this conversation. “Anyway, I’m going. Bye.”

Hinata glances over at the setting sun, makes a face, and waves hurriedly. Kageyama turns, so he doesn’t see where Hinata runs off to, but he hears his feet crunching away over the sand.

/

Kageyama can’t decide if he’s happy or irritated that Hinata becomes a regular at their volleyball games. On the one hand, he’s awful, and he keeps running his mouth about beating Kageyama and becoming better than him no matter how many times he takes a volleyball to the face.

On the other, he’s determined, quick, and his jumps would put anyone to shame. There’s a possibility that, with a lot of practise (a _lot_ ), he might actually be a good volleyball player some day.

And also, Kageyama actually… kind of likes talking to him?

Not that he’d admit it, because their conversations are just tossing insults back and forth more often than not. But the thing is, unlike everyone else, Hinata doesn’t seem to care if Kageyama is blunt or standoffish or rude - he’s just rude right back.

On one of the rare days everyone’s too busy for volleyball, Kageyama and Hinata end up sitting on the beach together anyway - at least until they start passing a volleyball back and forth.

“Daichi wants to know if you’ll join one of our teams for the Summer Festival Volleyball Competition,” Kageyama says.

“Yeah!” Hinata yells, passing the ball too hard and sending it sailing over Kageyama’s head.

“You’re getting that.”

After Hinata returns and they start passing again, he asks, “But we don’t have enough people for two teams, right?”

“Daichi’s got friends coming up from the city for a week. People he used to play volleyball with when he was in high school.”

Hinata frowns. “So wait, how old is Daichi?”

“I don’t know, like twenty?”

“I thought he was in high school.”

“You think they’d let a high schooler be senior lifeguard?”

Hinata tilts his head. “What’s a lifeguard?”

Kageyama catches the ball, staring at him. This isn’t the first totally weird question he’s heard from Hinata, but they catch him off guard every time. “The person who makes sure people don’t drown in the sea?” He motions back toward the lifeguard station. “We watch the beach.”

“So _you’re_ a lifeguard?” Kageyama nods. “Are you good at swimming?”

“Pretty good,” Kageyama says, noting that this is the most enthusiastic Hinata has looked about anything besides volleyball. “Er, do you… like swimming?”

“I love it!” Hinata says, throwing his hands up in the air. “Swimming is the best!” Then his face falls. “Ah, but you’re probably not very good.”

“I just told you I was, idiot!” Kageyama snaps.

“Yeah, but you have-” Hinata cuts himself off, suddenly looking worried.

“I have what?”

“Nothing. Hey, are you gonna throw that ball or what?”

 _Weird_ , Kageyama thinks, but he throws the ball.

/

Given how quiet it’s been, Kageyama was secretly hoping there wouldn’t be any call to rescue someone from the water during his time as a lifeguard.

Unfortunately for him, the universe isn’t that kind.

He hears someone shouting behind him as he’s talking to a group of day-trippers from the next town over. He whips round and instantly spots a young woman at the edge of the surf, waving frantically at the water.

By the time he reaches her side, he can see who she’s waving to; there’s another woman in the water, already far out from the shore, her head just bobbling above the water.

“Stay here, I’ll get her,” Kageyama says, fighting down a burgeoning swell of sick fear in his stomach as he runs out into the waves. He launches himself into the water as soon as it’s deep enough, checking every few strokes to see that he’s still moving directly towards the woman in distress.

He’s maybe ten metres away when he catches a flash of orange above the waves.

By the time he makes it to her side, he’s realised it’s Hinata, floating seemingly without effort in the surf while holding the woman up with a hand under each armpit. Kageyama has a moment to marvel at how Hinata barely seems to move in the water - and he’s not even _using_ his arms - before the woman lets out a series of deep, wracking coughs, clearly indicating that she’s swallowed a not-insignificant amount of seawater. Kageyama treads water and holds out his arms, and Hinata passes her into them, simply saying, “Riptide.” Kageyama nods to him once, then gets his flotation device under the woman’s arms, helping her swim on her back so she can breathe. He loses sight of Hinata as they swim back toward the shoreline, but the truth is he’s focused on little else except making sure the woman gets back to the beach safely.

After they get back and he’s seen her off safely with the ambulance crew, though, he begins to wonder.

When Hinata appears on the beach that night, Kageyama is waiting for him. “What were you doing out there?” he asks without preamble.

“Swimming?” Hinata says, giving him a strange look.

“You were beyond the swimming area.”

“The swimming…?” Hinata looks mystified for a moment, before saying, “Oh, those buoys? You’re not supposed to swim beyond those?” Kageyama nods. “…Why?”

“Because there’s boats. And sharks,” Kageyama says.

“Right. Boats. And sharks,” Hinata says, as if he’s confused why he should be worried about these things.

Kageyama rolls his eyes. “Just swim closer to the shore next time.”

“No promises!” Hinata smirks at him, then runs off to where the others are starting the volleyball game before he can reply.

As he trudges after him, Kageyama realises that actually, that’s the first time he’s seen Hinata anywhere near the beach in the middle of the day.

/

Kageyama isn’t worried the first day Hinata doesn’t turn up as usual for their volleyball practise. People have other stuff to do, and not everyone makes it every day. Yes, Hinata hasn’t missed a practise since he first joined them, but things happen.

When he doesn’t appear for the next three days, Kageyama starts to get worried. The tournament is coming up, and they need to practise - and, secretly, he doesn’t want Hinata to be gone, especially so suddenly and with no goodbye. He doesn’t even have the other boy’s phone number.

He asks the others if anyone knows where Hinata lives, and gets a round of shaking heads. “I’ve never really seen him around town, actually,” Ennoshita says. “I kind of figured maybe he was here on holiday, or staying with family.”

“He got kind of awkward when I asked about his parents,” Nishinoya says, “Maybe something’s going on at home?”

“Right,” Kageyama says, but he can’t shake the unease in his gut.

The next day he’s on duty with Tsukishima, which is torture enough to distract Kageyama from his worry about Hinata. He’s patrolling down the beach again, looking to avoid the lifeguard station and Tsukishima’s acerbic commentary, when he sees a flash of orange in the waves. Hinata is there, floating in the shallows like he was the first time Kageyama saw him; he waves an arm over his head when he spots Kageyama standing on the shore.

“You haven’t been at practise,” Kageyama says when he reaches the edge of the water.

Hinata winces. “Yeah. I… may not be able to come for a while.”

Kageyama wants to yell at him, but Hinata looks so utterly miserable that shouting at him would be like kicking a puppy. “What’s wrong?”

Hinata looks away. “Family stuff.”

“Right.” That’s something Kageyama can more than relate to; he still hasn’t plucked up the courage to talk to his parents about his grades, or the fact that he hates everything about the fancy boarding school they shelled out a crap ton of money for him to attend. “Well, if… if it gets better you can always come back.”

Hinata gives him a sad smile. “Yeah.”

Kageyama stands there awkwardly, knowing he should continue patrolling but reluctant to leave Hinata looking so sad. Hinata circles one finger in the water, then asks quietly, “Can you play volleyball in the water?”

“You can get floating nets, I think.”

Hinata perks up so fast, it’s like someone flicked a switch behind his eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah.” After a moment’s hesitation Kageyama says, “I’m working now, but I could ask at the surf shop…”

“Yes!” Hinata exclaims, and the return of his bright, brilliant enthusiasm makes something warm and hot swirl in Kageyama’s chest. “Tonight?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Kageyama says, and Hinata beams at him.

There’s something odd, slightly off-putting, about that smile, but a shout from down the beach makes Kageyama turn his head. By the time he looks back, Hinata is further out in the water, his bright orange hair appearing and disappearing among the waves.

During his lunch break Kageyama goes into the surf shop that’s across the road from the beach, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that it’s Yachi manning the counter rather than the intimidatingly beautiful Shimizu. The water volleyball net and ball aren’t particularly cheap, but Kageyama hasn’t really spent his allowance on anything aside from milk this summer, so he goes ahead and buys them anyway.

Hinata appears just as he’s beginning to fill the volleyball net with air. “That’s awesome!” he says, staring with wide eyes at the net.

 _It’s just a volleyball net_ , Kageyama wants to say, but trying to convince Hinata that _anything_ related to volleyball isn’t ‘totally awesome, wow, cool!’ is like trying to tell him water isn’t wet. “You could get out of there and help me,” Kageyama says, pausing his foot on the foot pump Yachi lent him.

Hinata doesn’t seem to hear him, instead swimming back out a bit further into the shallows and practising a spike over his head. “Awesome!” he crows, and Kageyama goes back to pumping, muttering under his breath.

The net doesn’t really stay in one place once they get it into the water, but it doesn’t really matter. Getting into position to return the ball feels like walking through mud to Kageyama compared to the way he feels on land, but apparently Hinata has no such problems. After a few games of back and forth, Kageyama realises Hinata definitely has the advantage on him. How does he move that fast, anyway? Kageyama watches him, eyes narrowed, and catches a flash of sparkling orange at his waist. His swim trunks?

Then the ball smacks him directly in the face, and he’s more concerned with getting under the net to smack Hinata in the head than anything else.

/

A few days later Daichi invites them all over to his place, ostensibly to ‘plan for the volleyball tournament’, but really so they can sit in his garden while they drink beer and eat barbecue. Kageyama tries and discards a beer fairly quickly, and spends most of his time helping Ennoshita with the barbecue (and sneaking a few pieces for himself while they’re cooking). It’s only a week now until the summer festival, and Daichi’s friends from the city, Kuroo and Bokuto, have arrived. With them they’ll almost be able to make two teams - they only need one more player.

“It’s a shame Hinata can’t play with us anymore,” Ennoshita says as he begins lifting the finished kebabs off the barbecue.

“He said something about family problems,” Kageyama says, keeping his eyes on his hands.

“It’s too bad; I liked that kid,” Tanaka says. Then he tries to steal one of the kebabs and Ennoshita slaps his hand away without even looking, and the two of them arguing brings an end to the conversation.

Later, squeezed in around the small garden table between Ennoshita and Asahi, warm and full of food, Kageyama finally feels truly comfortable for the first time that evening. The mood now is slower, calmer, just quiet talking and laughter. He’s listening to Asahi telling Noya some story about university when Tanaka’s voice interrupts all the quieter conversations.

“But they don’t _know_ ,” he’s saying, half-laughing and half-serious. “Like, Kageyama and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, they don’t _know_.”

“Don’t know what?” Tsukishima says, frowning at him.

“The _shark attack story_ ,” Tanaka says, which prompts a few groans from around the table.

“You got attacked by a shark?” Kageyama asks.

Tanaka shakes his head. “Not me.” He points at Daichi, who’s making a face at him.

When Kageyama, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi all turn to look at him expectantly, Daichi sighs. “Yes, I did get attacked by a shark. At least, they think it was a shark. They told me the teeth marks looked strange.” 

_Teeth_. For some reason the word sticks in Kageyama’s brain, niggling at something, some memory he can’t quite bring to the forefront of his mind.

“How did it happen?” Yamaguchi asks, looking equal parts horrified and intrigued.

Daichi shrugs. “That’s the weird part; I don’t remember falling off the boat. One minute I was reeling in a net, the next I was in the water, half-drowned, blood everywhere and in a fuck load of pain. The other guys on the boat fished me out and got me to the hospital.”

“That’s not the weird part,” Asahi says, raising his eyebrows.

Daichi gives him an exasperated look. “Okay, the _weird_ part is that I _hallucinated_ seeing someone in the water with me.”

“You put a lot of emphasis on ‘hallucinated’,” Tsukishima says.

“Because there was no way anyone could _actually_ have been out there. We were miles out at sea, and everyone else on the boat swears they didn’t get in the water.”

 _Like how I saw Hinata when I was saving that woman_ , Kageyama thinks, before dismissing the thought. After all, Hinata could feasibly have swum out there from the beach, just like he had.

“I’m just saying, people have reported seeing mermaids in the bay before,” Asahi says, which sets off a round of incredulity - but the word sticks in Kageyama’s head. Even as Daichi shows them the nasty, thick scars on his legs and arms, Kageyama keeps thinking about mermaids, mermaids and _teeth_.

They were too sharp, Kageyama realises. That’s why Hinata’s smile looked so off. His teeth were too sharp, and just a touch too long.

He leaves the party with a sick, unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach. It’s just a superstition; there’s no chance merpeople are actually real. Hinata’s just a bit… odd.

Still, he falls asleep seeing that too-sharp smile behind his eyelids, and wonders.

/

The thought won’t leave him alone. It bothers Kageyama as he stares out at the horizon, watches the sun-dappled waves rush onto the shore. Is there something strange about Hinata - something beyond normal, regular human weirdness?

At the end of his shift, his feet take him down to the water’s edge on auto-pilot. He watches the water, determined that he’ll see Hinata appear this time. He never really thought about it, but the fact that he never sees Hinata get into and out of the water is strange, isn’t it? As is the fact that he hasn’t come anywhere the water was shallower than waist-deep for at least a week. Kageyama remembers the flash of bright, sparkling orange he saw at Hinata’s hip when he leapt out of the water, and his heart jumps into his throat.

In the end, Hinata appears between one blink and the next. Kageyama looks down, rubs his dry eyes, and when he looks back up, Hinata is waiting there in the waves, head cocked to one side. “Were you waiting for me?” he asks. He sounds happy about it.

“Yes.” Kageyama opens his mouth, then closes it. He can’t find the words. How the hell do you ask someone if they’re a merman? “Why do you never come out of the water?” he asks bluntly.

Hinata smiles, but it’s close-lipped and nervous. “I come out sometimes.”

“Not for a week.”

“I just like the water.”

Kageyama just waits, staring at him.

Hinata stares back for a long moment, chewing his lip.

“It’s just weird,” Kageyama says slowly, “because you seemed so into our volleyball games, but now you’re here every day, but you never come up onto the beach to join us.”

“I…” Hinata starts, before his voice fades away weakly.

“And no one ever sees you around town,” Kageyama says, “And I never see you get in and out of the water. And you don’t know things that really, everyone knows-”

“Fine! Just- shh,” Hinata says, scowling at him. “Fine. You- come back here later.”

“Later?”

“When the moon’s up and everyone’s gone home.”

“My parents-”

“Do you want to know or not?” Hinata snaps, and then he disappears back under the waves.

Kageyama counts, and he gets to three minutes before he realises Hinata isn’t going to resurface.

Dinner with his parents is quiet, for which Kageyama is grateful; he’s not sure he could hold a conversation with anyone right now. He lies on his bed with the lights out, pretending to sleep, waiting until he can hear his father snoring before he slips out and heads down to the beach.

It’s a beautiful, clear night, the perfect circle of the full moon bathing everything in a soft silver glow. The air is still, so the waves are small, breaking quietly against the shore.

Kageyama can already see the bobbling head of a person in the water when he steps onto the beach.

“Okay,” he says, when he gets to the waterline. “What are you gonna show me?”

In response, Hinata swims up into the shallows, right up until he’s beached on the sand.

Beached, because he can’t get up and walk out of the ocean. Beached, because Hinata doesn’t have legs.

Kageyama drops down into a squat, staring. Even in the moonlight he can see that Hinata’s scales are orange, bright and vibrant like a clownfish. Fascinated, he reaches out with one finger and pokes.

“Don’t poke me!” Hinata exclaims, pulling his tail away.

“But you have a tail!” Only when the words burst out of Kageyama does the full implication of them hit him. “You- you have a _tail_. Like, a fish tail.”

“I can see why you’re a good setter, Kageyama. You’re so observant.”

Kageyama glares at him. “Don’t mouth off, you’re the- the-”

“Merperson,” Hinata supplies, slowly, as if he’s talking to a child.

“Yeah. That.” Kageyama can’t stop staring at the tail, like he’s been hypnotised by the shining orange scales. “Explains why you’re so weird.”

Hinata lets out a noise of frustration, then dips one fin under the surface, scoops up a bit of water and splashes it at Kageyama, hitting him right in the face.

“Unfair advantage!” Kageyama splutters, wiping seawater out of his eyes.

“Your height is an unfair advantage, and you still use it.”

The mention of height brings up another question Kageyama has been wondering about. “So if you’re a- a _merperson_ ,” he says, still not quite believing he’s speaking the word aloud, that this is _real_ , “how come you have legs sometimes? And how come you haven’t had them for the past week?”

Hinata looks mulish. “My friend has a talisman that gives human form to whoever wears it. I’d been getting away with taking it without him noticing, just for a few hours while we played on the beach, but then he found out and got mad. So I can’t have legs anymore.” Then Hinata’s expression turns sly. “He also told me to stop hanging out with you, but he can’t _make_ me do that, so.”

Kageyama hesitates, then asks, “Don’t you… have parents?”

Hinata tilts his head. “Parents?”

“Like… the people who… gave birth to you,” Kageyama says slowly, utterly shocked at the idea of not even knowing what the word ‘parents’ _means_. He’s wished he could ditch his own, at times, but he’d never actually wish them _gone_.

“Oh, right. Merpeople don’t really look after their kids the way humans do,” Hinata explains. “When we’re babies we just kinda… move on instinct. Then, when you grow up, you find your Shoal, and they teach you how to do stuff.”

“Stuff like what?”

“Like… fishing, chasing off sharks, avoiding boats and people. That sort of thing.”

The mention of sharks brings back the sick feeling in Kageyama’s gut, the image of Daichi’s scars swimming through his mind. “You… have really sharp teeth, right?”

“Yeah!” Hinata says, opening up his jaw to show him.

Kageyama tries not to recoil. Hinata’s teeth had seemed sharp enough when he smiled with his jaw closed, but when he holds his mouth open and pulls back his lips, the long, sharp teeth are even more obvious and terrifying.

“And look!” Hinata says, closing his mouth and pointing to his eyes. As Kageyama watches, a second, filmy but clear eyelid closes over both Hinata’s eyes. “Protects them from the seawater,” Hinata says proudly.

“That’s disturbing,” Kageyama says, though he actually thinks it looks kinda cool. 

“You’re disturbing, Kageyama,” Hinata retorts, poking Kageyama’s calf. “You can’t even breathe underwater.”

“Do you have gills?” Kageyama asks.

Hinata points at the side of his neck, and Kageyama can just make out three dark lines. “They stay closed above the surface,” Hinata explains.

Kageyama nods. He had a point with all this, didn’t he? Before he got distracted. Hinata grins at him, showing off those rows of disturbing teeth again, and Kageyama remembers. “Do you eat people?” he blurts out.

The instant look of fear and worry on Hinata’s face answers him as clearly as any words. “Oh my god,” Kageyama says, moving to push himself up from the sand.

“Not me!” Hinata cries, whipping out a hand to catch Kageyama’s wrist. “I don’t! I’ve never eaten a human!”

Kageyama regards him warily. “But other merpeople?”

Hinata looks guilty. “Yeah. Other merpeople do. Sometimes.”

“So why don’t you?”

“Well…” Hinata sits back, letting go of Kageyama’s wrist. “I… I watched you. Humans, I mean, on the beach, and in the town. You seemed a lot like us, so it felt weird, y’know, to think about _eating_ you. My old Shoal didn’t see it that way, so I left and came here. The Shoal in this area don’t eat humans.” Hinata sighs and looks away. “But that’s why I can’t get my legs back. For that I would need to cast a spell, and a merperson can’t do magic without consuming human flesh.”

Kageyama was quiet for a second, trying to digest all that. “But if you have a magic talisman or whatever,” he says, “Doesn’t that mean one of you _did_ cast a spell, in the past?”

Hinata winces. “They don’t eat humans _now_. I promise.”

“How long ago did they stop, exactly?”

Hinata looks back at him, confused. “I don’t know. A few years? Why?”

Kageyama tells him about Daichi’s ‘shark attack’. “It made me think of how you helped me save that swimmer. You just appeared out of nowhere.”

“Well I couldn’t let her drown,” Hinata says. “I’m much better at being a lifeguard than you, Kageyama.”

“Shut up, you didn’t know what a lifeguard even was. And I brought her back to the beach.”

“After _I_ saved her.”

“Shut up!” Kageyama snaps, and splashes at him with water.

Hinata just shakes it off like a wet dog, which makes Kageyama even damper than he was already. “Was she okay? That swimmer?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, she was okay.” They lapse into silence, the only sound the crash and rushing hiss of waves hitting and receding down the beach. “This is weird,” Kageyama says quietly, “You’re- you’re not even human, and yet… it’s like nothing has changed.”

Hinata shrugs, but Kageyama can tell he’s nervous. “Nothing has changed. Other than me being a bit more honest now.”

“I guess,” Kageyama says, and in that moment he realises - it’s true.

Yes, Hinata may have a tail. He is, categorically, not human.

But he’s still Hinata - annoying, rowdy, friendly, volleyball-loving Hinata. Hinata, who takes his insults and gives as good as he gets, who continues to hang out with him despite everything.

Hinata, who is chewing his lip, clearly nervous. “So… what now?”

Kageyama thinks for a second. “Can you convince your friend to give you the talisman back?”

Hinata blinks at him. “What?”

“For the competition. We still need one more team member.”

Hinata sighs. “Probably not. He’d be really, _really_ mad if he knew that you know.” Hinata looks suddenly afraid. “You can’t tell anyone, Kageyama! No one, okay? I only told you because you’d pretty much already guessed.”

Kageyama nods. “Okay. It’s our secret.”

Hinata grins, and this time it’s kind of endearing despite the razor-sharp teeth.

“Well, I guess if you can’t get your legs back, we’ll keep playing water volleyball,” Kageyama says. “It’ll be good training for me.”

A spark of hope begins on Hinata’s face. “We can keep playing?”

“Sure. Even though you suck.”

“You suck, Kageyama!”

“You suck more. And you smell like fish.”

Hinata splashes him with water again, this time dousing his entire upper-body.

For a moment they sit and stare at each other. _Well, I’m already wet,_ Kageyama thinks, and dips his hands into the water to splash Hinata back.

/

After he’d finally left Hinata on the beach and gone to bed, Kageyama had lain awake for a while, worrying. Would it be weird, now Kageyama knew Hinata’s secret?

As it turns out, things are better. Hinata no longer has to lie or dance around the issue, and Kageyama has a solid explanation for all Hinata’s weird quirks and the gaps in his knowledge. On the flip side, now Hinata no longer has to pretend he knows everything about the human world, he’s just full of _questions_. Kageyama’s losing count of the times he’s heard “what’s that?” or “what’s this?” or “why do you humans do…” It’s kind of driving him a little bit slightly crazy.

On his next day off, he meets Hinata early in the morning. He’s wallowing as usual in the shallows, a contemplative expression on his face. “Kageyama,” he says, “What if we did something other than volleyball today?”

For a moment Kageyama just stares at him. He honestly never thought he’d hear _Hinata_ express a desire not to play volleyball. “Like what?”

“Like, well… there’s this place just round the next headland,” Hinata says, pointing, “It’s really cool and, well, humans don’t really go there often, so I thought it could be cool to like, just, hang out, or…”

He’s babbling, and Kageyama realises after a second that he’s nervous. “That sounds cool,” he says, and feels something warm in his chest when Hinata instantly smiles at him. “Can I climb down from the shore, or will I have to swim?”

“Swim. There’s no path down from the shore.”

Kageyama nods, looking up at the sky. It’s early yet, but the day promises another scorching, cloudless blue sky. “Okay. Wait here a minute, then. I have an idea.”

Hinata nods, and Kageyama bikes as quickly as he can back to his house. His parents are drinking coffee out in the garden, so he sees no one as he grabs what he came for and goes back down to the beach.

“Is that…fins?” Hinata asks, frowning at the items in Kageyama’s hands.

“Flippers. And a snorkel mask,” Kageyama says, strapping it on over his head. “It helps me breathe in the water. Sort of. It’s easier if I just show you.”

With the fins on his feet, Kageyama still isn’t as fast as Hinata, but he can at least somewhat keep up. Swimming with his eyes in the water, though, finally allows him to see just how fast, graceful and smooth Hinata is as he moves through the water. Knowing Hinata is a merman and occasionally glimpsing a flash of his orange scales as they play volleyball is a whole world away from watching him as he cuts through the water, as at home here as Kageyama always feels in the middle of a volleyball court.

With Hinata leading the way, Kageyama swims out of the bay (past the wildlife nets, but Hinata assures him he’ll protect them if they see a shark) and around the headland into the next cove. It’s much smaller and narrower than the wide bay the town sits on, and the cliffsides are sheer rock. Nestled underneath them and surrounded by tangled formations of rock is a small, bright white stretch of sand. Kageyama flops down in the centre of it, tired from the swim, and Hinata beaches himself right beside him, the sun sparkling off his scales.

Kageyama closes his eyes, and listens to the ever-present rush and roll of the waves on the shore, and the singing of birds up in the trees on the headland. The lingering drops of seawater on his skin dry quickly in the hot sun, and he’s half-asleep when Hinata finally pokes him. “You can’t be that tired,” he protests, “We didn’t swim that far.”

“I was enjoying the moment,” Kageyama says, reluctantly opening his eyes.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Kageyama props himself up on his elbows, “Why is that so hard to believe?”

“I’ve never seen you sunbathing before.”

“Because you’re always pestering me to play volleyball,” Kageyama says, at which Hinata makes a face at him. “Since we didn’t bring the net out here, what were you planning on doing, exactly?”

Hinata’s expression clearly says he didn’t think that far ahead. “Er…”

“Then let me sleep,” Kageyama says, and closes his eyes again.

Hinata lets out a huff, but he doesn’t say anything for a long time. After a while he says, “You know, Kageyama, I’ve been wondering - why does everyone stop swimming after the summer?”

“Because the beach is closed,” Kageyama says, not opening his eyes. “And it’s too cold to swim.”

Hinata is silent for a moment as he digests that, and Kageyama supposes that the concept of ‘too cold to swim’ must be very foreign to him. “But will you all still come down to the beach to play volleyball?” Hinata asks hopefully.

Kageyama feels something seize in his chest, upsetting the perfect mood of the day. With the end of summer will come September, and going back to school - specfically, back to a school he’s too stupid for and a volleyball club where he’s not welcome. “No, I’ll have to go back to school,” he says, realising how much he’s dreading it.

Hinata knows what school is now, but he also knows that Tsukishima and Nishinoya go to the local high school and live in town, so he’s clearly confused. “I go to a school inland,” Kageyama says reluctantly, “I stay there for a few months, then come home for holidays.”

“Oh,” Hinata says, sounding disappointed. “Is that fun?”

Kageyama lets out a gusty sigh. “No. Actually it kinda sucks.”

“Oh.” Hinata seems to hesitate for a moment before asking, “Why?”

“Because I’m no good at school. I fail every test,” Kageyama says bitterly. “The only thing I _am_ good at is volleyball, and…” He hesitates.

“Is it not a good team?” Hinata asks.

“They’re one of the best in the prefecture,” Kageyama says. “They… they just don’t like me.”

He expects Hinata to say something like _it’s not hard to see why_ , but what he actually says is, “But they must be glad to have you on the team, right? You’re so good at volleyball!”

Kageyama grits his teeth. “They already have a good setter,” he gets out, “and he’s a lot better at… working with people.”

“Oh.” Hinata tilts his head. “But you do okay at working with the others on the beach.”

Kageyama looks away, picking at the sand. “That’s because it’s only casual. There’s no real stakes. The last time we were in a real game, my teammates… I set the ball, and they left me hanging. Intentionally.”

“Dicks,” Hinata says, scowling, which makes Kageyama jump. He didn’t know Hinata knew that word. _Do merpeople even have dicks?_ he wonders - before steering his mind firmly away from that train of thought.

“I wish I could go to school with you,” Hinata’s saying, “I’d never miss spiking one of your balls!”

 _I wish you could come to school with me, too,_ Kageyama thinks, not realising how much he wants that until he realises he can never have it. Because Hinata doesn’t even have _legs_ , let alone parents to pay Aoba Johsai’s exorbitant school fees. But for a minute, he imagines it; going to class together, sharing a dorm, practising together. Having someone on his side in the gym, someone who can keep up with him. He can’t pinpoint when he’d gone from thinking of Hinata as an annoyance to thinking of him as a friend, but he realises now that they _are_ friends; and more than anything, he wants a real friend to go to school with.

He wants it so badly his chest hurts.

“You miss them regularly,” Kageyama points out gruffly, to hide how mournful he suddenly feels.

“Okay, I’d never _intentionally_ miss one,” Hinata says, giving him a cheeky grin - and the pain in Kageyama’s chest only intensifies.

Leaving home at the end of this holiday, he realises, is going to be even worse than he thought.

/

“It’s a no can do,” Tanaka says, flopping down into the sand. “I don’t think my salary for the entire _year_ could buy enough beer to convince Saeko to play on our team.”

“So that’s everyone’s siblings out,” Noya sighs, falling onto his back on the sand.

There are groans from around the circle of boys sitting in the sand. The festival is tomorrow, and they still haven’t found someone to fill in the last spot on their second team. They can enter with just one, but it will mean switching in and out, and they all want to play as much as humanly possible.

“Will you ask Hinata one more time, Kageyama?” Ennoshita says.

Though he knows there’s no way Hinata can participate, Kageyama nods anyway, just to be polite.

The meeting breaks up soon after that, with Daichi admonishing everyone to go home and rest up before the games tomorrow. Kageyama lingers on the beach, wondering if Hinata will pop up out of the surf once everyone’s gone.

Instead, he hears footsteps crunching over the sand toward him. When he looks up, his mouth drops open.

Hinata grins down at him. “Surprise!”

“How did you-?” Kageyama half-shouts, shooting to his feet.

“Long story,” Hinata says, “But I have legs until midnight tomorrow, so I’m back on the team!” He punches the air, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’ll text Ennoshita,” Kageyama says. As he does, he notices Hinata shifting awkwardly, the way he does when he has something to ask but doesn’t really want to voice it. “Spit it out,” Kageyama says, still focused on his phone.

“It’s just… I don’t really have anywhere to stay? Can I…?”

For some reason, the thought of Hinata at his house - in his _room_ \- makes Kageyama flush. But there’s nowhere else for him to go, so he says, “Yeah. Okay.”

Whatever weird embarrassment Kageyama was feeling over having Hinata stay over in his room, it’s drowned out pretty quickly by the very normal embarrassment of having anyone interact with his parents. After he’s finally chased his mother out of the room, Kageyama sits down on the bed and watches Hinata, who seems entranced by everything in Kageyama’s room, including the futon he’s sitting on. “I hope it’ll be comfortable enough,” Kageyama says stiffly.

“It’s amazing!” Hinata says, his eyes wide as saucers as he looks around. “Kageyama, what’s that?”

“My closet. I keep clothes in there.”

“And what’s _that_?”

“My laptop.”

“And wha-”

“We’re not doing this all night,” Kageyama says, fearing an impending headache.

“Okay,” Hinata says. He only looks disappointed for a second, before his expression slides over to devious. “Do you really never have friends over to stay, Kageyama?”

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Kageyama snaps, turning off the light.

He lies awake for more than a hour, listening to Hinata shifting and breathing in the dark. It’s true that he hasn’t had anyone sleepover with him in years, and he wonders if getting this odd, fluttery sensation in your stomach is usual when there’s another boy only a few feet away, fast asleep in your room.

The volleyball competition will be going on all day, so they have to get down to the beach early. Hinata’s return is met with a round of cheers and grins, and they have time to practise a few shots and warm up before it’s time for the first match.

Everything has always felt instantly _better_ the minute Kageyama steps onto a volleyball court; but with Hinata here beside him, whooping and yelling and enjoying every minute, he finds that sensation is even more intense. Hinata still kinda sucks, but he has the speed and reflexes and jumping power to keep up with Kageyama - and that, Kageyama realises, is perhaps the best feeling he’s ever had on the court. It’s heady, being able to send the ball flying as fast as he can and know someone will be there to meet it. He’s going to miss it like missing an entire limb when he goes back to school, but he doesn’t let himself think about that now; instead he focuses on the games, on the rush of playing the sport he loves.

Playing with Hinata is so good that it even takes the sting out of losing in the final to Tsukishima’s brother’s team. They still get little second place medals, and the gleam in Hinata’s eyes when he gets his makes a bright, happy warmth bubble in Kageyama’s chest.

It’s evening by the time they’re done, and the festival is buzzing. While the others go off to get food or drinks, Hinata sidles up close to Kageyama’s side and says, “I… I’ve only ever watched this from the sea…”

“You wanna check it out?” Kageyama asks, and Hinata beams at him.

Hinata, he soon learns, wants to try every stall and attraction in the festival - no matter the drain on Kageyama’s wallet. Despite himself, Kageyama bears this without complaint; if pressed he’d say it was because Hinata might never get the chance to do this again, which is true, but it’s also because Hinata’s enthusiasm is infectious, and he looks… pretty, when he’s all fired up and the lantern light is shining in his eyes. That’s the only word Kageyama can think of to describe it.

All in all, aside from the moment Hinata starts _talking_ to the fish in the goldfish catching game, the evening is without incident. Kageyama buys them each a plateful of takoyaki and they head up the hill with everyone else in time to see the fireworks.

They stand side by side in the dark, but Kageyama notices that Hinata is staring down at the beach and the town, no longer eating. “Do you not like it?” he asks.

Hinata starts a little. “No, it’s great!” he says. He smiles weakly, but it slips off his face as soon as he turns back to the bay. “It’s just sad,” he says quietly, “knowing I only have tonight.”

Kageyama doesn’t know what to say. While their time together has been so good, it’s true that the end of the night looms in Kageyama’s mind, as does the end of August and the summer break. “I wish you could come to school with me,” Kageyama blurts out. “I- it would be cool to have you around. All the time.”

Hinata blinks at him, seemingly surprised, and Kageyama is glad the darkness hides his blush.

“That would be cool,” Hinata says, and he sounds so sad that Kageyama wants to do anything, anything at all, to make him feel better.

“I-” he starts, but then there’s a _bang_ , and the crowd lets out a low _aaah_ as light from the first firework washes over them.

They both turn to watch, but Kageyama can hardly focus, what with the thoughts roiling in his brain. He wants to do something to make Hinata feel better, to make any of this better - but he can’t.

Halfway through, he feels a hand brush his. Suddenly his breath is short, and he can’t move. He stands, still as a statue, as he feels Hinata’s hand slowly slip into his. Then he moves, ever so slowly, winding his fingers around Hinata’s.

When he turns, Hinata is already looking at him, the bursting fireworks reflected in his eyes.

Kissing Hinata won’t make anything better - it’ll probably only make things more painful, in the long run - but in the moment Kageyama can’t stop himself. He leans in and brushes their lips together, just lightly, feeling rather than hearing Hinata’s gasping intake of breath. Then he presses their lips together, hesitantly; he’s never kissed anyone, and he’s not really sure he knows how it’s done. But Hinata’s lips are soft, and he tastes like seasalt, and now it feels like the fireworks are going off in Kageyama’s head and in his stomach rather than in the air above him, so he figures he probably got it right.

He only pulls away once the sky’s gone dark and quiet. They stand there staring at each other for a minute, suddenly awkward and tongue-tied, before Hinata looks away and says, “I get my tail back at midnight. We should probably go back to the beach.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says, sick disappointment flooding his gut. The fun, wonderful part of the night is over; now all that’s left is the wrenching goodbye.

Still, Hinata holds his hand all the way back down to the beach. For a minute as they walk Kageyama allows himself to imagine that there’s no such thing as merpeople; that Hinata is just a cute boy he spent the summer playing volleyball with, and that their relationship is normal and totally, blissfully magic-free. “You should get a phone,” he says as they step back onto the beach, “Then we could text.”

“Text?”

“Send each other messages.”

“Like letters in a bottle?” Hinata asks innocently, and for some reason that makes Kageyama break out in laughter. Hinata pokes him in the side, and Kageyama pokes him back, and they end up falling into the sand together, laughing.

“I’d like to be able to send messages to you,” Hinata says, his tone dreamy, and Kageyama almost kisses him again.

“I don’t know how you’d keep it dry, though,” Kageyama says, distracting himself from Hinata’s lips with the thought of waterproof boxes and phone cases. “Still, we should try. Then we could talk, even though you’re here and I’m there.”

Hinata nods, and apparently he’s not distracting himself with thoughts about waterproofing, because he’s the one pulling Kageyama in for a kiss this time.

It’s wonderful, heartbreaking, amazing, and Kageyama doesn’t want to stop - except his hand is on Hinata’s waist, and he suddenly feels the rather disconcerting sensation of clothes turning to scales under his hand. He pulls back just in time to see scales flowing down Hinata’s body like a spreading wave, his feet twisting and disappearing into long, elegant fins. Then Hinata is once again the merman he knows, tail and scary teeth and all.

“You even get magic clothes?” is all Kageyama can think to say, because Hinata’s outfit appears to have all been part of the human illusion.

“Magic covers everything,” Hinata says, sounding a little choked.

Kageyama wants to say something that will make Hinata feel better, but as usual, he’s tongue-tied when it comes to the subject of human emotion. Instead, he looks up and notices how far away they are from the waterline. Struck with an idea, he says, “I’m going to have to roll you down to the water.”

Hinata looks over his shoulder. “No, I can just drag- Kageyama!”

Kageyama huffs, and manages to finish rolling Hinata over on the sand. “You’re heavy.”

“It’s all the muscle in my tail!”

“You sure?”

“Ye- stop!” They fall into playful wrestling, and by the time they finally hit the sea, they’re both laughing too hard to stop.

/

The morning after the festival, Kageyama finally sits down with his parents and talks about school. He’ll still have to do the next semester at Aoba Johsai, as his parents have already paid the fees, but if he truly wants to transfer, they say they’ll talk about it in the winter. Kageyama promises to work harder, and then they let him go.

The next day he goes down to the beach after dark and meets Hinata in their usual spot at the edge of the beach. “What’s that?” Hinata asks, nodding to what’s in Kageyama’s hand.

Kageyama holds it up. “Waterproof box,” he says. “The description claims it’s completely watertight, but I wouldn’t trust it too far. And don’t take it too deep.”

“But what’s in it?” Hinata asks.

Kageyama opens it up to show him. “This is my dad’s old phone,” he says, bringing it out and handing it to Hinata. It’s an old brick of a thing, but Hinata doesn’t need any of the fancy features on Kageyama’s iPhone; he just needs to be able to text. “It’s pretty indestructible, but don’t go throwing it in the water or anything.”

Hinata begins pressing the buttons, his eyes alight. “Kageyama, this is awesome!”

“Yeah, well,” Kageyama says, looking down at the sand with his face hot, suddenly embarrassed about the extravagance of the gift. “It’s just so we can send messages, while I’m away. Do you have somewhere you can keep it safe?”

When he looks up, Hinata is giving him the biggest grin he’s ever seen. “Yeah, I do,” he says. “Kageyama, this is awesome! I’m gonna send you a message every day!”

“Cool,” Kageyama says, his cheeks burning even more - but he doesn’t resist when Hinata pulls him down for a kiss.

/

There are a lot of things Kageyama doesn’t have figured out. He’s standing by the car, waiting for his dad to grab his thermos of coffee from the kitchen. His bags of clothes and books and volleyball gear are all piled in the boot, ready for him to move back into his dorm at Seijoh. He’s trying not to think about that - and trying not to think about the fact that, though he’d love to go to the local high school and be able to come down to the beach and see Hinata every day, his best chance of getting noticed by a talent scout is getting to Nationals, and he has a good chance of doing that with the Seijoh team. He’s also trying not to worry about if something happens to Hinata, or if he manages to break the phone and they can’t text any more (though if Hinata could text just a _little_ less, that would also be great - he doesn’t seem to understand that Kageyama has only paid for a certain number of them).

So, he doesn’t have everything figured out. But he does have a boyfriend (even if he is a merman) and he does have a team (even if they kind of hate him). Something will work out.

He sees something shimmer in the bay, like light sparkling off scales - as if their owner is waving goodbye.

Kageyama grins, and waves back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
